


Testament

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-17 21:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4682582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He opens it unthinkingly and that's how he comes to find himself staring down at her father's watch. An envelope with his name on it. Her writing. And tucked in like an afterthought, an official letter from the law firm. Half a dozen pompous-sounding names handling the estate of Katherine Beckett."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is set during the gap in "Rise" (4 x 01), after Castle sees Beckett in the hospital, but before she's back at the precinct. I have the first two chapters written and the rest drafted. I can't say for sure how long it will be, but let's call it between three and five chapters. Posting may be a little slow as the semester has come slouching toward Bethlehem.

 

* * *

 

He opens it unthinkingly. He does most things unthinkingly by then. Forty days on. More than that now. Lots more, but he stopped counting at forty, and rote repetition carries him from day to day. Rising, showering. Feeding himself. Dressing. Not quite every day, maybe, but almost, even though there's nowhere to go anymore.

But he makes his calls, and the ritual of it seems important. Shoes and socks and shirts with buttons, even though no one can see. Even though it's just Ryan and Esposito. Whispers echoing through some stairwell. The signal dropping out if they can only manage a call on the way in and out of the precinct parking structure.

They come by the loft sometimes. To go over it and over it and over it. They do come by, thought not really often enough to justify the work he's been putting into playing at normal. They have their own lives, after all. Full-time jobs and the case—he still calls it the case, however little they have—is officially extracurricular for them. And as the leads narrow to nothing, he literally doesn't know what to do with himself.

So he goes through the motions. Rising, showering, and so on, and the mail is part of that. Fetching and sorting. Opening everything, even the junk mail. Shredding it sometimes to eat up the too-many hours before it's time to stare at the ceiling. But even if it's not that bad a day, the mail is a ritual, too. He fetches and sorts and opens.

That's how it happens. He opens it unthinkingly and that's how he comes to find himself staring down at her father's watch. An envelope with his name on it. Her writing. And tucked in like an afterthought, an official letter from the law firm. Half a dozen pompous-sounding names handling the estate of Katherine Beckett.

* * *

 

He goes to Jim—to her father—on nothing more than the fact that he's listed as the executor. On the official-looking letter, he's right there in official-sounding language. James Beckett, father of the decedent, and executor of the estate of Katherine Beckett.

It's in his lap. A small package, disemboweled and re-emboweled, if there is such a thing, somewhere along the way. Somewhere in the blur that begins in his office and ends here. In the back seat of a cab that's only taking him well outside Manhattan because he tossed an enormous amount of of money through the driver's side window, got in the back, and refused to budge once he had.

He goes to Jim. Unthinkingly as anything he's done. That's how he starts out, anyway. Unthinking with the package in his lap, but the ride is long and the cab is silent and he's carrying the weight of forty days with him. More than that, and he's thinking quite a lot, all of a sudden.

He's thinking how angry he is. How hard it is to breathe and how there's no reason at all for his hands to be shaking like this when the sirens are only in his head. The shot and his own voice shouting her name. The absolutely steady shrill of a monitor flatlining. It's all only in his head, but he needs to hear someone say it.

Jim. Her father. He needs to hear it from his lips. That it's a mistake. A horrible, heart-stopping mistake.

* * *

 

His knuckles are coming down hard on the wood when it occurs to him this is crazy. That it's pointless at best, crazy at worst. The windows of the neat little house are dark, and well they might be. It's nearing eleven and Jim shouldn't even be here.

She'd gone to the cabin, last he heard. Last he had the heart to ask, because he hadn't quite withered and died under Lanie's pity, but it was a near thing. She's gone to the cabin, and it's his. It's Jim's, and of course he'd be there with her, because it's a mistake.

Because she's healing. Because she's far away from here and she hates him or she's forgotten him or she's so blissfully in love with Josh that there's not even the smallest corner of her life left over for him, but she's not dead. I's a _mistake,_ and Jim would absolutely be with her. Miles away in some direction or other.

But his knuckles come down hard on the wood, and an upstairs light flicks on. Another follows, but he can only see it at a distance. A glow through the gathered, cream-colored fabric behind the glass above the door. Another nearer by and finally the porch light. Finally the door opens, connect-the-dots light blazing behind Jim, and his face his grey when he takes in who it is. His voice is a sandpaper rasp.

"Rick. Good God, Son." He shakes his head, pleading. "Is it Katie?"

* * *

 

"I've never been sorrier that I can't offer a man a drink." Jim sets the mugs on the table. Sets out spoons and hunts up sugar and cream, though neither of them takes it. "A _real_ drink."

"Coffee." Castle works at smile, then drops it, hoping he's right in thinking it _can't_ look as awful as it feels. "Decaf is good. Perfect right now."

It's close enough to true. He wraps his hands around the mug, soaking in the warmth, but that makes him think of Raglan. It makes him think of blood fanning up her neck and chest and he wonders what good it is. Omens like that when there's nothing he could have done differently.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am," he says as he takes the chair opposite and scowls at the box siting there between them. "I've been managing all the odds and ends of this nonsense. But it's been . . ." He sips at the coffee, thinking back. "Weeks now, I think, and they swore it was all squared away. The estate lawyers, the hospital."

_Hospital._ The word makes Castle blanch. It makes his stomach lurch. Hurt wiping out every last trace of the anger he's cultivated so carefully.

_Of course. We'll talk tomorrow._

_Do you mind if we don't?_

Jim sees it. The effect the word has on him. He can't help but see it in the peculiar bright light of a kitchen in the middle of the night.

"The ambulance, really." Jim doesn't quite look up. He's being careful. Trying to be careful, but this is the terrible heart of it. She did die after all. She _died_ in that ambulance and someone, somewhere ticked the wrong box and set off this whole chain of events. "They must have taken it off her on the way?" It's his turn to pale. To press his palms to the table like it's the only surface in the world that might hold him up.

"Maybe?" Castle shakes his head. He's sorry. He's _so_ sorry, and he should be able to give the man more than this. He should have been able to stop this all somehow, the way Jim had asked. "I only remember . . . " His voice gives out on him entirely. He holds tight to the mug. "Her heart. I only remember it stopping and then starting again. They started it again. But maybe they took it. Maybe it wound up with her . . ."

_Effects_. He can't make himself finish the thought. Can't stand the idea of any of this. Mistake or not. _The estate of Katherine Beckett._

He pushes to his feet. "I'm sorry, Jim." He covers his embarrassment with busy work. Picking up his mug and looking around for a place to put it, but the counter—the whole kitchen—is spotless. Nothing out of place, and it seems wildly invasive all of a sudden. Emptying the dregs into the bright stainless sink and rinsing the mug when they're strangers. The two of them are practically strangers, and it's crazy he's even here. "I'm sorry to drag you out of bed for something . . ."

"There's no sorry about it, son." He holds the letter in his hands. The official-looking letter, turning it over and over. "If you think that first call didn't freeze the blood in my veins . . ."

Castle suppresses a shudder. He can't fathom it. Can't begin to imagine, and he wants distance from the very idea. He wants to not be here. To _never_ have been here. He tugs his phone from his pocket and calls up the number for the car service he should've taken in the first place. Should've had standing by.

"All the more reason I should've called. Or at least waited till morning," he mutters, focusing on the task at hand. Tapping in origin and destination. Willing the damned place to hurry. _Hurry_.

But there's time to eat up, and he doesn't know if the silence that falls is better or worse for either of them. They stand awkwardly in the hallway, trapped together at the foot of the narrow stairs with the house dark on either side of them. Lights swing around the corner. They drag through the hedgerows separating one neat little house from the other, and the thought that he's never been so grateful for anything in his life crosses Castle's mind.

But he turns to Jim to make his goodnights, and he knows it's not true.

He's grateful for a green line finally leaping on a black background. One piercing beep after another, and a stranger's voice _Got her! Got her back!_

He's grateful for the sight of her, ashen and surrounded by flowers, even though she sent him away. Even though she left him.

He's grateful— _so_ grateful—it was just a terrible mistake. _The estate of Katherine Beckett_. He's grateful she's still in the world.

He turns to tell him. To offer some stumbling, incoherent thank you for saying the words. But Jim is holding the box out to him.

"No. I can't . . ." It's stumbling enough. Incoherent enough. "Jim, no. I meant . . . of course I meant to leave it with you."

"She wanted you to have it."

Jim's hand is steady, and there's an insistent look around his eyes—around his mouth—that Castle knows too well. A stubborn look, and he knows he won't win this.

"No. She didn't. It was only if . . ." He does manage something then. A smile. A thank you, even though his heart is breaking all over again. _The estate of Katherine Beckett_. He shakes himself. "And she'll want it. Because . . . because she's fine."

"She's alive." He pushes the box into Castle's hands and that's the end of it. It was always going to be the end of it. "I never said she was fine."

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He doesn't want to keep it with him. He certainly doesn’t want it in the loft. He can't bear the thought, and for a desperate moment, he thinks about the precinct. About slipping in and tucking it safe in one of her desk drawers. But the very idea is equal parts stupid and painful."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the time-gap in Rise 4 x 01.

He doesn't want to keep it with him. He certainly doesn’t want it in the loft. He can't bear the thought, and for a desperate moment, he thinks about the precinct. About slipping in and tucking it safe in one of her desk drawers. But the very idea is equal parts stupid and painful. 

 

Stupid, because Gates has eyes and ears everywhere. Every _when_ , and the middle of the night is no proof against calling unwanted attention to Ryan and Esposito and the ragged look that's settled on them both in recent weeks.

 

Painful, because every single detail comes alive in his memory. Candy dish and elephants and the decadent hand cream with its pretty, wafting scent that she thinks she's tucked far enough back in a drawer that no one knows. What it feels like to sit in his chair at the end of the day with his legs stretched out and share a few quiet words with her. It all comes alive, and the precinct is impossible. 

 

There’s a darker moment when he wants to pitch it. Toss it in the overflowing street can and not look back. She hasn’t. Not for a second, so why is he agonizing over it? Why, forty days on and more, is he agonizing over _her_ when she wants nothing to do with him? 

 

But he thinks of Jim, grey-faced in his robe and slippers, terrified that Castle’s knock is the one he’s feared for the last ten years. Terrified that Castle, somehow, would be the one to bring the awful news. He passes the trashcan by and makes his way inside. He trades minimal nods with the doorman and lets his head knock against the back of the elevator. 

 

He’ll give it Lanie, he supposes. Or send it back to the lawyers? They've handled things. Their screw-ups, even though it was really the hospital. Or the ambulance company or something. Jim had said so, but now he's clumsy just thinking about it. The _effort_ of it. It makes him clumsy with his keys and his feet suddenly don’t know how to traverse the familiar stretch of hallway. He thinks sourly that this is why he’s held to ritual all this time. Rising and showering and eating and dressing. Because this is what happens when he stops. When he has to think.  

 

He makes it inside. Locks the door behind him, but there’s no relief in it. He stands there with his jacket on. His shoes, and he’s holding his keys like he’s never seen them before. Holding the box, and he doesn’t know where anything goes. Keys and limbs and the stupid fucking box that he doesn’t want here. He doesn’t want in his home.  

 

He moves through the loft to his office. He has to go somewhere, and he can't just leave the box sitting out with its awful, mistaken implications. His mother. Alexis. They're far off and not coming back any time soon, but it has to go somewhere, so he drops it on the desk. He drops everything. Keys and jacket and box. He pulls off his shoes and leaves it all behind. He’s black-out tired suddenly and he falls to the bed in his clothes. Stretched across it at an odd angle and his mind switches off for a blessed little while. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He dreams. Strange, everyday fantasies weaving in and out of long-familiar nightmare. The smile peeking over the rim of her coffee cup and her eyes rolling back. Closing and everything bright green around her head. The bump of her shoulder against his on their way out of the precinct on any given night. A sharp, perfunctory frown at some joke of his, but she drops out of sight when the elevator opens. She steps into black and she’s gone. 

 

He wakes slowly after a hundred iterations. Three years cracked suddenly open to tumble around his mind. Strange. Wonderful and awful in how completely distant and unfamiliar the good memories seem. Every other night—all this time—it’s been one agonizing day lived over and over, but he’s used to that, at least. 

 

He struggles with it, sleep and waking both, and his cheeks are wet. He feels heavy and prone to bury his face in the pillow. To weep for her, as though he’s suddenly gotten that far. As though he hasn't been in suspended animation; as though it’s been a process for him all this time, and he’s gotten to the point where it’s possible to feel sorrow. To do something as simple as miss her. 

 

He feels dried out, though, and his head is pounding. He needs water. Needs to shed these clothes like skin. He needs to not be trapped in this. Ritual, day after day, as though something will change if he just keeps going through the motions. 

 

He drags himself into the bathroom, toppling things in the dark. Cupping his hands and scooping water into his mouth endlessly. Soaking the front of his shirt, and the way it clings to his skin is unbearable. He strips it off. He strips off everything and steps into the shower in the the pitch black. 

 

The water is scalding, but he does nothing to alter it. He bows his head and lets it pound against his skin. The back of his neck and the aching expanse between his shoulder blades. He stands there with his palms pressed to the tile until the water finally runs cool. Until he’s shivering. 

 

He steps out feeling steadier. Like he fits into these limbs and those far-away seeming hands and feet are his very own. Or they will be again someday. They can be. He dries himself, meticulous, as though his muscle memory has unwound entirely and he needs to think through each step. Relearning.

 

It’s the middle of the night, still. The city tells him that. Its sounds and gritty street lamps filtering through the slats of the blind. It’s the middle of the night, but he wants coffee. Food. Odd things that don’t fit together, and it’s all disarray. Cabinets standing open and the counters littered with things half consumed. 

 

It ends as suddenly as it started. Chaotic, rapacious, _literal_ hunger. It ends, and leaves him empty in a way he hasn’t acknowledged in forty days. More than that. He’s not just empty. It’s not just one, echoing sensation. It’s so many things. He _wants._ He _needs_. 

 

It’s painful. Stinging needles like a limb coming to life again after hours of stillness and weight. Agonizing in its way, but a relief, too. Relief in the way he calls on his mind and his heart and every long-dormant part of himself and they stir. They're not dead and it hurts, but it's better than the alternative. Maybe. Maybe it’s better. 

* * *

 

 

He finds himself in the office. Sitting carefully, the box between his hands on the desk. He finds himself there, surprised and not surprised as he reaches for the envelope. For the watch like talisman he wants to keep close. He touches the face of it with a wordless wish for something.

 

It's not without terror. How could it be? Only her death should've put this in his hands. And she _did_ die in that ambulance. Suddenly the truth of that—the bruising, present memory of it happening—crowds his mind. It doesn't matter whether she’s alive _now._ It doesn’t matter whether or not he has it from Jim’s lips that the watch in his hands and the envelope with his name in her writing are just a mistake. 

 

It's not without guilt, either. He handles the envelope with the tips of his fingers. Like it’s evidence or will be if he’s not careful. It’s not without guilt, because whatever this is—whatever it says—she never meant the words to pass from her to him while she had breath to say them 

 

But anger wins out. Anger and _want_ and _need_. She’s gone and these are here. 

 

_Memento mori._ He turns the envelope in his hands. Turns it so his own name faces away and breaks the seal.

 

It’s stationery, not everyday paper, and some just-waking part of his mind registers the import of that. The significance of the precise crease in the heavy, elegant cream with a simple border that catches the light. Some just-waking part of his mind shelters the knowledge that whatever this is, she did it with care. With intention. 

 

He unfolds it slowly. Reverently if he's being honest with his adverbs. He presses it to the desk and the watch alongside it. He falters for the first time since he woke. His palm hides the words and he hears his own voice. Jim’s. 

 

_She wanted you to have it._

 

_No. She didn’t._

 

But he pulls his hand away all at once. In anger, but more than that. In want. In need. 

 

_Castle,_

 

_You know why I wore this. I hope you know why I want you to have it._

 

_Kate_

 

He’s motionless for a long time. A long time, and it feels like the sun should be up when he moves at last. It feels like seasons should have turned and his skin should sag, dappled with age. But it’s dark through the glass of the office wall, the light from the desk spilling over such a tiny fraction of the world. The note. His hands. The watch and the box standing open. 

 

He sees it then. Or maybe it appears. Maybe it comes into being just then, because it’s time. A slip of paper tucked along the side of the box. Not the official-looking letter. Not some trace of packing material he’d missed. A small white slip of paper with three lines in what must be Jim’s handwriting. An address, and he looks at the face of the watch for the first time. Makes sense of its steady tick and the position of the hands. 

 

He looks at the address, his mind working already. A decision made. He looks at the address. At the watch one last time. 

  
He can be there by sunrise. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were confused by the premise: Beckett's "death" in the ambulance leads to bureaucratic screw-ups so that parts of her Will are executed, including her father's watch ending up with Castle. It IS contrived as I said in my first A/N, but it does happen—it's happened to me, in fact, where I ended up with some jewelry a very-much-alive Great Aunt left me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's just as well he hasn't been thinking about it. What this moment would be like. How he might feel or what they might say. It's nameless. Infinitely complicated and the simplest thing in the world."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Set in the time gap in Rise (4 x 01).

 

* * *

 

It's an easy drive. Long and lonesome, but easy at this hour, with just a handful of trucks rumbling by him. His mind is a busy blank, taking in sights and sounds like the world is new and unfamiliar. Something to be watched with care. Something to be suspicious of.

He doesn't think about her, exactly. Doesn't think about what he'll say or she'll say or how the simple force of seeing her again might take him. Whether he'll be angry or cold or on his knees with relief.

He doesn't think about any of it, exactly, though there's a thrumming knot of anticipation right at the center of him. Taking up more and more space just when he needs to push it down and away. Just when the roads narrow and go to gravel and dirt and all there is to guide him is the suggestion of tire tracks he can barely see through the green-grey-brown of the forest floor.

He doesn't think about any of it as he climbs out of the car and feels the earliest sun touch his shoulders through the cool canopy of leaves. Even when the door swings open before he can knock. Before his knuckles can come down hard on the wood, and they're staring at each other.

He doesn't think about it, exactly, until his mouth opens and nothing comes out.

"Castle," she says, so faintly that neither of them is sure she's said it at all.

It's just as well he hasn't been thinking about it. What this moment would be like. How he might feel or what they might say. It's nameless. Infinitely complicated and the simplest thing in the world.

"Beckett. Can I . . ." He swallows hard. He holds out the box like an offering, and she knows what it is. Whether it's the shape or weight of the hinged box inside or Jim gave her fair warning, she knows exactly what it is. "Kate. Please. Can I come in?"

* * *

 

It's terrible how awkward they are with each other. Terrible that it's not even any kind of reversion. They were never like this. Not from the first moment. Not when they were at their worst. This silent avoidance is never how they were.

The box sits by the door. Set aside, but not forgotten. Not in the least. The fact of it—the awful, unlikely path it's traveled—makes everything impossible.

He sits, miserably watching _her_ rituals. The way she plays at normal in this new, frail body, swallowed up by pain and wrong-looking clothes. She moves around the kitchen slowly. Agonizingly slowly, and he sits with his hands folded on the chipped kitchen counter.

It's a stovetop percolator pot. The kind with a see-through crystal knob on the lid. His mother had had one. Some time in some apartment, and he thinks it was a hand-me-down or a thrift store find. Something that embarrassed her, but he'd loved it. Loved calling out when the coffee sloshed up. When he could see it thrashing inside the knob.

He feels an unwelcome surge of warmth. Nostalgia for it, and he hates that he wants to share it with her. He hates that he still wants that to stitch together the stories of his life and hers.

It's a moot point anyway. However long he's been lost in memory, she hasn't really moved. She's still standing at the sink with empty pot, scowling.

"I've had a cup," she says, almost to herself.

"Then I don't need . . ." He stops himself, the lie too obvious for them, even now. Even like this. He drove straight through, and the dream-laden sleep he'd fallen into feels a lifetime ago.

"I've had one." She says it again, and he realizes she meant something else entirely by it.

She runs the tap into the pot for the count of five, six, seven. He watches, fascinated. Appalled as her lips barely move. Literally counting it out, and he sees that she needs both hands to lift it. That the steel contraption with its thick, bolted-on handle is too heavy for her with water enough for two.

One gear catches another somewhere in his mind. He feels the same clumsy sensation of things out of place. Thoughts this time. Realizations coming out of order.

She's alone here, and that's strange. Upsetting. Fucking _terrifying_ when he sees the sweat beading at her hair line from her struggle with the pot and the effort of opening a single drawer and turning the mug already on the drainboard right-side up.

It's absolutely _wrong_ that she's here alone. Retroactively mortifying that it could have— _should_ have—been Josh swinging open the door to see who the hell was about to knock at the crack of dawn. But for all that—for all the bitter taste in his mouth at the very idea—finding Josh here would have been so much less strange than what seems to be true.

She's here alone. She's _been here_ alone. He can see it in the tell-tale patterns of use and disuse in the cabin's wide-open floor plan. He can see that she sits just over there by the window that holds the sun the longest. That she needs the blanket most of the day, and keeps the tall pile of cushions in easy reach.

He can see the dust on the almost untouched stack of books and finger marks where she catches herself on the wall and the doorframe and some wide wooden contraption he doesn't recognize. He can see she takes the long way around everything. That the energy she can ill afford is a trade off for never being too far from something to catch herself on.

She pours the coffee with two shaking hands, but he doesn't dare offer to help. He senses danger in that, however awkward the silence is. She overshoots. Tips the percolator too far forward and the lid threatens to slide off, spilling the grounds with it. He's half out of his seat, but she recovers. Sloshes just a little on the counter and swipes at it with the too-long sleeve of a plaid shirt he'd never have imagined her in.

He's settled himself by the time she looks to see if he's seen. If he's noticed how bad it is, and he wonders if it matters or not how convincing he is. He wonders why he's playing whatever game this is.

She pushes the coffee toward him. Slides it, rather than lifting, and there's a glimmer of her— _his_ Beckett—in the way her eyes flash. The way she dares him to comment.

He doesn't take her up on it. It's too awful. He's too angry. Angrier still at how impossible it is to _be_ angry when it's this bad. When she's alone and has been, and it's not like they would've left of their own volition. Her dad. Josh. Lanie. _Him_. It's not like anything but the sheer force of her will could have manufactured isolation so complete. And yet . . .

"I don't," he hears himself saying it, the mug warming his hands. It's a high, thin sound with the syllables bleeding together until it's almost a wail. "I don't know why you wanted me to have it."

* * *

 

"I have to walk," she says when his outburst dies away. Her eyes are downcast, and he realizes when she goes on that it's an explanation of sorts. A strangely direct comment on the absolute silence that had fallen between them just a moment ago. "Outside. I need . . . I have to build up." She looks up at him. Halfway looks up, though the wide band of her shirt cuffs are too fascinating in the end. "If I don't go right after coffee . . ." She breaks off, unwilling or unable to lay bare any more of her own weakness.

"Do you . . . "

_Do you want company?_

It's what he almost asks. Light. False and social, but he _is_ angry in some complicated, spiraling way, and he's tired of this. He's tired of the fiction that there'll be some right moment for them. Some break in the clouds or a quiet, breathtaking moment when time stops and things come right.

"Do you want me to come?" He asks flat out, eyes on her.

"No." It's immediate. And complicated. True, but there's more to it. Far more to it in the way she holds her breath.

"Can I come anyway?" It's softer by a fraction. Still stubborn, though.

"Ok," she says. Immediate, too, and they make their way together. Outside.

* * *

 

It's easier there. Outside. The cacophony of nature filling in a conversation that's more silence than anything else.

"Watch," she says, demonstrating how to give something overhead or underfoot wide berth. It's practically the only thing she says for a while. _Careful. Not that way._ Variations on a needful theme.

He's clumsy. Genuinely at first. Unfamiliar terrain, and he has the wrong shoes. Plus he's still exhausted and half road-blind. Stumbling with it for real, but it becomes theater somewhere along the way. A doubly useful bit of stage business.

She's slow. Painfully slow and it's easier to match her pace if he makes a show of it. If he hesitates and places each foot with deliberation. And it annoys her. Sparks one word off another, because he always could get her talking this way. It hasn't changed. She's telling him about the place before long. What to be careful of and why, and it's like a door opened a little wider. He wonders aloud. Makes things up when she ignores him, and it's easier when she has to work not to smile about it.

She stops, though. Just when he feels like they're hitting this new, tentative stride, she stops and scowls straight ahead. He inches his way next to her. Tries to see what she's seeing, but there's nothing of note as far as he can tell. The woods thinning a little maybe, and water nearby. He can hear it when he makes himself still enough to listen.

"Gotta go back." Her voice is low, her face tipped down and hidden by her hair.

"Back? Already?" It's out before he can think better of it. Before he can prune back some of the surprise. The childish accusation.

"Already," she snaps. "You don't have to come." She jerks herself around. An about-face that costs. Her shoulders cave in and he sees the deep lines around her eyes. Pain she's too well acquainted with, and still it makes her savage. "Go on if you want."

"Beckett, that's not what I meant." He snaps, too, as frightened as he is angry.

The fight goes out of her abruptly. "I know. Me neither." She says it to the ground. Fits her feet into well-worn spaces in just that exact spot. He's just on the verge of getting it—understanding what it is about this spot—when she says it out loud. "If I go any farther, I won't make it back to the cabin," she lifts her head for that. Almost looks him in the eye, though not quite.

"You have to build up." It's just an echo from earlier. Something she said out loud, but she nods as if it's a constant reminder she needs. He turns toward the clearing. Listens, and the water calls to him, so insistent it must be maddening to her. "Do you . . . "

He grits his teeth. Everything he can think to say—every way he might put this—sounds like the worst kind of metaphor. Ill-fitting dialogue with too much hanging on it when right now he's barely keeping his feet in the land of the literal.

"We can go a little farther if you let me help," he says finally. Bluntly.

"Help." She looks around. Forward and back and anywhere but right at him.

"Help. You can lean on me or ride piggy back or I'll figure out what the hell a palanquin is and how to make one out of . . ." He gestures at the trees. Elaborately. Comprehensively. "Whatever you make a palanquin out of."

"Palanquin?" She tugs at each syllable. Draws at each one and decks it out with skepticism.

"Palanquin," he says again. "If you want to go a little farther."

She looks down at her feet. At the well-worn spaces. She scowls for a long moment, then looks up and nods. "A little farther."

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Two more chapters after this, most likely. Thank you.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She moves as easily as he's seen her so far, here where there's less to lean on, but more open, level ground. More sun warming her skin. She's sweating again. Rivulets disappearing into her collar, but there's healthy color in her cheeks and the hard-won breath doesn't seem to hurt quite the same way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Second-to-last chapter. Set during the time gap in Rise (4 x 01).

 

 

* * *

 

She doesn't need him at first. Or won't admit it, but he doesn't think so. He thinks she could have made it little farther without him, and he thinks she knows. He's _sure_ she knows. Just as sure there's a story behind the caution that's so unlike her. His mind calls up scenarios by the dozen. Crises. Almost-tragedies. A fall. Some injury. Her stranded and in pain as the dark came on.

But he's alone in his imaginings. Alone in almost choking on impotent, ex post facto panic. She moves as easily as he's seen her so far, here where there's less to lean on, but more open, level ground. More sun warming her skin. She's sweating again. Rivulets disappearing into her collar, but there's healthy color in her cheeks and the hard-won breath doesn't seem to hurt quite the same way.

"This is . . . " She stops and turns. Catches him studying her and nods. Shrugs it off like she's answering a question they both know he was about to ask. "I always feel good this time of day."

She's smiling. It catches right in the center of him. It tugs at the tight knot of anticipation he'd forgotten about, even though it sounds a little like a warning.

"Coffee?" he says like it's any other day. Like they're joking. Flirting, but it hurts as soon as it's out. How _not_ like any other day every thing is. How every other day is a thing long over for them.

"Coffee. And the meds. They balance or something." She struggles to get it out. Struggles to turn and look at him, and it's not because her body is a wreck. It's not _just_ that. It's because this hurts her, too. The wreck that are, and more on top of that. The shame of bring broken. Of not being invincible. "The rest of the day I'm . . ." She shakes her head. Lets her arms go slack and her spine slump.

"Do you need to go back?" he asks as carefully as he can.

"Not yet." She gathers herself up like she's shaking off fear. She closes her eyes and her head turns just slightly. It tips up a little toward the music of water, closer now. "Hear that?"

He nods silently. The call of the water saying everything for both of them just then.

"I want that," she says and strikes out toward it.

 

* * *

 

It's a mess. Beautiful with little slivers of sun leaping on the surface of the water, but the ground is a mess here. A stream rushing and wider than it should be, judging from the low bushes clinging with exposed roots to the newborn muddy slope. They must've had more rain here than the city and he wonders what she did with her days then. If she paced the cabin's interior of sat in the chair by the window, helpless and without options as the strength she'd so carefully built up slipped away.

She's prying her feet out of her shoes before he can worry about it. She dips her knees, her whole body descending at once to work her socks off with effort that leaves her winded and red-faced.

"Cold!" she gasps as she drops to her butt on wide, gnarled root raised a few inches above the wet, muddy mess of the ground and her feet land in the swiftly traveling water. "God that's cold." But she's doesn't flinch from it. She grins like she's getting away with something. It's exquisite. Painful right down to the heart of him, but exquisite.

He doesn't drop down next to her. He'd like to. He likes the amicable picture it makes in his mind, but there's a recklessness to her now that troubles him. A pendulum swinging wildly the other way. The current drags at her. Toes, ankles, calves, soaking her jeans to the knees, even though she's made a clumsy effort to roll them up. He thinks about the cabin, infinitely far away and how they'll get there. How they can possibly make their way back with her exhausted and half soaked.

"This feels good." The quiet declaration pulls him out of himself. Out of another dark spiral. She's leaning back, the broad trunk of the tree more than up to the task of supporting her. Her palms are flat on either side of her. Sinking into the mud, her fingers curling in such pleasure that it's hard to worry. Hard not to be captivated with her mini-rebellion, however much the beauty of it hurts. "This feels _so_ good."

 

* * *

 

She needs him on the way back. Badly.

They get her up on her feet, gracelessly, but without incident. Socks and shoes are a different matter, though. A project that leaves them both sour. Bad-tempered with each other, and he mourns the quiet pleasure of the last little while, now that it's gone and they're left with the memory of that particular struggle. It shuts both their mouths and the going is slow. She won't ask for help, and he's not about to force the issue for a host of reasons, some good, some bad.

They move on back through the clearing, wordless and avoiding each other's eyes until she stumbles hard, and that's the end of that. She cries out. Sharp and alarming. He's literally never heard anything like it from her, and he's catching her under the arms. She's sheet white and sweating, and that didn't happen all at once. He's a mess of guilt and anger that won't stick to anything. To him _or_ her, though it belongs to them both by rights.

"What do you need?" He steps back from her. A show of hands that says he won't go on like this.

She breathes hard. Half a minute or more before her eyes are clear enough—before the pain washes back enough—that she even processes the question. She turns her wrist up. Her left wrist, but it's bare, of course. It chastens her in some way he doesn't understand.

"It's late," she says. She's stalled there, her body giving out, however contrite she might be.

"Medication," he says, only just figuring it out as the word leaves his mouth.

She nods, ashamed. Grateful he's saved her the breath, and he's overwhelmed. Buried under everything he doesn't know about _everything,_ and they're still so far from the cabin. He almost offers to get it. To leave her here and come back with it, but the very thought slams the breath right out of his body. It's a sudden, adamant truth that he is absolutely not leaving her alone, and he'd like someone to hate for that.

"Beckett. Tell me . . ."

His palms turn upward as he trails off. A helpless gesture, because he doesn't even know how to finish the plea. He doesn't even know what he needs to know right now. She looks back at him, just as helpless. Fully as ignorant of how they do this simple thing.

He moves toward her, extending a cautious arm as if to slide it around her waist, but she shakes her head. He jerks it back like she's bitten him, and he wonders how hard he might kick that particular adamant truth. How much work it would be to take it apart to its component atoms and free himself from her. From this. 

"I can't . . ." She grits out the words, reaching to touch his arm, though it costs her. "It hurts too much to lift it like . . . to hold on like that."

"What then?" He steps closer to her. An apology of sorts. Weary acceptance that he can't go on taking every last thing as rejection. He literally can't if they're not going to both die right here, stranded in the mess they are.

"If you . . ." She looks ahead, a sigh slipping from her like the narrow path goes on forever. "If you go first, I can . . ." She holds a palm out a little above her own waist, her fingers fanning wide.

He doesn't get it. He doesn't see what she means or how it can help, but he turns. He takes a step and he feels the heel of her hand settle firm at the crest of his hip. Feels some of her weight transfer to him, and it's awkward at first. A little awkward, an then it's a dance they both already know somehow. Her fingers hooking into his belt loop when she needs him to go slower for a little while. A nudge to the left or right when he's unsure and she's suddenly close at his back. His palm out waiting for hers when there's something to step over.

Dance or not—easier or not—it feels like forever before the cabin's in sight. Before he can really breathe again, and he doesn't see how she'll make the stairs. But she steps past him. She lays a practiced hand on the worn wooden railing and takes it slow. Her legs are shaking and her eyes close when she makes it to the top. When she feels along the bottom of the metal mailbox for the key that has to be more about peace of mind than any real deterrent to anyone. Not that there's anyone around to deter.

He follows her inside, alarmed at how immediately she drops into the chair. How heavy and motionless she is. Her eyes are still closed, and for a moment, he thinks she's passed out. He hovers nearby and wishes—fervently wishes—that her eyes would snap open. That she'd slap at him and tell him not to, but her lips work at something. Her tongue wets her lips.

"Can you . . .?" Something claws at her. Some pain somewhere, and he remembers that it's late. That she went out without her meds and stayed out well past when she should've and made him an accomplice in the process.

"Bathroom?" he asks shortly without really waiting for an answer. There are only four interior doors in the whole place. He finds the tiny bathroom on the second try. An amber bottle on the bottom shelf of the mirrored medicine cabinet.

"One," she says without opening her eyes. Without lifting her hand or stirring at all.

The label says she can take up to the three at a time, and looking down at her like this, he's inclined to argue. To fall back into the the habit and cajole her like he does. To nudge his way in and bother her into actually taking care of herself. But he remembers suddenly how he came to be here. The watch looms large and he remembers that he doesn't do that anymore.

"One."

He tips the pill out into his own hand, then remembers water. He doesn't bother hunting up a glass, just gives the same mug on the drainboard another rinse, then brings it back. He has to lift her hand. Has to rouse her, but she calls up the last of whatever it is that's gotten her this far. Energy, stubbornness, or embarrassment, she manages to take the mug from him. To do the seemingly impossible work of sipping and swallowing and handing it back. Catching his wrist with fingers that can hardly hold on.

They're frozen like that, the two of them, and his pulse is leaping. Pressing itself into her fingerprints and he feels defeated. Entirely defeated because he's in love with her. He's still in love with her after everything, and it's not a surprise. It's not a shock or a revelation. It's quiet, calling music, like water in the distance. It's been there all the while and the only thing new is the utter impossibility of pretending any longer that he doesn't hear it.

"You'll be gone." Her eyes are open. Just barely open. She's still holding his wrist. He's still holding the mug. It's an awkward tableau and she's not even looking at him. She's looking past him. Out the window and there's the barest glimpse of his car pulled up on the gravel patch in front of the house. "You'll be gone when I wake up."

She sounds forlorn. Sad and angry and afraid. For him, at him, of him. The same for herself. For. At. Of. She sounds forlorn.

He'd like to think it's wishful thinking. His own remnant delusions remaking her exhaustion into something else. But it's not that. Of all the tangled things he doesn't know—has no idea about—he knows she doesn't want him leave.

"No," he says, catching her fingers just as they drop from his wrist. Holding on just briefly. It's reassurance and resignation in equal parts. He's weary. Despondent and worn out with hope at the same time. Fixed to the spot, and he might be telling her all he knows. All he really knows. "I'll be here. I won't go."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks for your continued patience and support. I posted on this on tumblr, but to repeat: I made the decision to remove the ff.net reviews that were nothing but abuse of me, personally and I'm moderating guest reviews. I really am not comfortable doing that, as I've never moderated reviews in any form before, and there are dozens of legitimate reasons why people review anonymously. But I just want to get to the end of this at this point, and I can't see any other way through.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She sleeps. Deeply and immediately enough that he can't move five steps away without worrying whether or not she's still breathing. But he gets used to it. Used to how loud the outside world is in a way that's completely alien to him. Used to the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders, and eventually, the rapid back and forth beneath her lids when she begins to dream."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This grew by a chapter and a short epilogue, so this is the second-to-last. I'll post the last and epilogue tomorrow, most likely. Set during the time gap in Rise (4 x 01)

 

 

She sleeps. Deeply and immediately enough that he can't move five steps away without worrying whether or not she's still breathing. But he gets used to it. Used to how loud the outside world is in a way that's completely alien to him. Used to the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders, and eventually, the rapid back and forth beneath her lids when she begins to dream.

He settles on the couch, thinking he'll read or something. Figure out what he's doing here. What he means to do and how it will end. How it will be when he leaves her, because he has to, doesn't he? He can't stay, and surely she doesn't want him to. Surely leaning on him for the space of an hour doesn't change anything, and he'll have to go, with or without any kind of an answer.

It's a cold, slithering realization, or it wants to be. Maybe it _should_ be, but the truth is, he doesn't think about any of that. Not in any head-on way. It's all noise in the distance. Things swimming in his peripheral vision, as he watches her sleep. As he watches her breath come and go. Lines gather on her brow, then smooth away. She cries out softly, once or twice. Flinches hard, and her hand flies to her chest. To her side. Her fingers worry at what must still be the rough, raised topography of skin there. Scars she'll have as long as she lives.

But she smiles, too. Small twitches of her lips, and the pain is still there. Evident in the tight tug at the corners of her mouth and the stiff way she shifts in the chair. But she smiles, and sometimes it's turned out toward the world and sometimes it's looking in. Not quite secret, but turned inward.

She murmurs. When she's calmer and the lines smooth away. She looks young and she murmurs to herself. To others. One word at a time usually. _No_ and _Mine_ and, once, _Prima facie_ and he almost laughs out loud, but he finds that's not exactly in working order for him. The bubble of amusement feels rough as it works its clumsy way up, and he can't remember quite how it should sound. Laughter.

And then she says his name.

_Castle_

He's on his feet, thinking she's calling for him. Needing something, but she's still deep in sleep, and he's part of something flitting past in a dream. He's part of her toes curling and her fingers flickering like she's tapping at the surface of water rushing merrily by. He's part of her shifting in the chair. Scowling and pawing at a cushion at her side until it moves a fraction of an inch. Until she turns herself a little, and he can almost see the tension leaving her. Ease slipping in to take its place, and it reminds him of the moment that came over her, sitting under the tree, her toes turning blue in the frigid water and her fingertips sinking into earth. Holding on.

_Castle_ , she murmurs again, and then she's quiet. Still and at rest for a long, long time.

* * *

 

He falls asleep himself. A thing so unlikely that even while it's happening, everything in him insists it can't be. Almost everything. But the world gets heavier and heavier, and he folds his arms on the back of the couch. Propping himself up to keep watch, but his head sinks. It fits just so between the angle brackets of his elbows, and he sleeps.

He wakes twisted up. His arms feel dead most of the way down, and he's disoriented. Confused entirely by the slant of the light. By the thick, ugly, serviceable fabric an inch from his nose and the way his cheek bears the negative imprint of it.

Confused entirely by her.

The world rushes away all at once, leaving behind a terrifying lack of anything but her body there, half curled on its side in a chair, so absolutely still that he thinks he must be dead. That they both are, or might as well be. He thinks he's retreated so far and so entirely into his own mind that there's nothing but fear and emptiness and the shell of her for company.

But there's pain, then. Intense discomfort as spine and knees and hips and shoulders protest. As the pins and needles race all the way up from his fingers, and his stomach twists and makes an angry sound, and he realizes that's what woke him. That's what grounds him and turns the world the right way up.

He's hungry, and it's something to do. He levers himself upright and wonders what time it is. How long it's been since he stood hunched over his own kitchen counter, shoving disparate things in his mouth. He looks at his watch—his own watch—but it doesn't seem to apply here, any more than the way the sun has swept its lazy way to a different quarter of her window.

He moves slowly at first. As quietly as he can, but everything is unfamiliar. Old and unpredictable in the way of spaces lived in only every now and again. Cabinets don't quite close they way they should, and the slant of the floor sends things clattering out when he opens them.

The refrigerator is nearly bare. A loaf of bread. Some store brand with only a few slices gone. Which is why it's in the fridge, he suppose. To stave off mold and make it last. There's a jelly jar, mostly full, and eggs with only two gone from the dozen. The top shelf is cluttered few quart-sized jugs of milk, oddly enough, three of them sour and outdated.

He dumps those and runs a thin stream of water around the bottom of the sink to banish the smell. He turns back to the still-open fridge and finds a few butcher-paper squares slid away in a stubborn drawer. They're small and thin. Just a few slices each of whatever, with dates neatly written across the still-sealed tape.

He catches the rhythm of it. Sees another lonely pattern come together and assumes it must be Jim. That he must arrange for this. Week by week or something along those lines, he must have someone brings things in.

Her part in it is all too easy to imagine. The way she must grit her teeth and bear it. A stranger on the doorstep, or maybe not. Whatever town's nearby, it's not likely to be big enough for strangers, and that has to be worse for her. Small talk to be endured. Assurances that she's better and a brave face for when the news of the week makes it back to her dad.

She throws most of it away. He sees that, too, in the one-of-almost-everything in the fridge and army of things she has assembled more easily at hand. A jar of peanut butter sitting out on the counter. Pop-top cans of soup and a single, dented aluminum pan, clean and at the ready on the stove top. Its walls are thin, making it light, as if it's from a camp set meant to be carried. A knife and single spoon on the drainboard where the mug lives, as though she doesn't bother with a bowl.

He has an army of his own assembled before he even realizes it. Torn-open butcher paper with salami in one packet and a few strips of bacon in the other. Eggs standing by, and he hopes they're fresh enough. There's cheese. Something orange and mild he wouldn't have chosen.

He hauls out a cast-iron pan from underneath the stove top. There's a basket down there, too. A few sprouting onions and potatoes that have seen better days, but he can work with them. He finds a couple of real knives and pares away the bad parts. He gives himself over to it. Improvising. He lets his hands move and the story of her life these last few weeks write itself.

He's wrapped up in it. Absorbed body and mind until her voice rouses him. Startles him so the metal spatula clatters in the pan and grease hisses and pops, lighting up a trail across the back of his hand. He rushes to her, worried all over again. Guilty that he's lost sight of her—what she needs here and now—in time that's gone. Days and days they can't reclaim.

"Beckett?" He crouches next to her. "You're awake?" It's stupid the way he makes it into a question. The way he imposes his own, clumsy return to consciousness on her, but her face is screwed up so strangely and she's blinking at him. "Are you . . . Beckett, are you ok?"

"Hungry." She opens her eyes wide. It's an effort. Sleep still has a firm grip on her. The medication, maybe.

"Ok," he says slowly. "There's food. I just threw some things together." He's embarrassed. Suddenly sees it how she might. Him rifling through her things. Through her dad's things. An intrusion, not just something to do.

He moves to push himself up, but she reaches for him again. A repeat of an earlier scene, but she's waking now. Coming back into the world.

"No." She frowns. "Hungry," she says again. "I just haven't been hungry in . . ." She looks up at him, fleeting. Embarrassed in turn. "Not since . . . "

He nods. Loosens her fingers, then slips his own through them, just for a second. "Better bring you a plate, then."

* * *

 

She comes to the counter instead. Insists on it, and gives away more than she'd like in the process. The sleep has done her good, but she's in pain again. Slower than she was even in the morning.

She makes her way up on to the stool, then looks at the fork like it's something malevolent. Like there's no possible way she has energy to even lift it, but hunger wins out. She picks up the fork with a shaking hand, and the food travels a slow but steady path from plate to mouth.

He remembers that he's hungry, too. That this part started with him being hungry. He's afraid at first. Dishes himself out the smallest of portions in case she wants more. In case she wants all of it and then there's not enough.

It's ridiculous, though. Of course it is, because she's hardly been eating anything all this time, and she's full almost as soon as she starts. The bites she takes get smaller and smaller until he can tell she's down to just the taste of things. Until she's down to dragging the tines through the eggs. Piling the potatoes and onions into a curving bulwark against them.

"That bad?" It's a weak joke. Worse than weak. But there's something so melancholy and lost in the movement of her hands that he can't help falling back into bad habits. "I can make you a sandwich. Or something from a can. That should be safe."

He moves away. Tries to, but she snags the rolled-up cuff as his sleeve as he goes by. It pulls him up short. Almost topples her, unsteady as she is on the flat, narrow stool with its uneven legs. He reaches out to right her, and she grabs at him with her other hand, winding up with a fistful of shirt somewhere near his waist. They stare at each other, tangled in an arm's length, approximation of embrace.

"No. It was good." She presses her fingers to the skin just at the crease of elbow. Holds tight to his belt loop and for a moment, it's like they're dancing again. "Really good." Her cheeks go pink, and he wonders if she can feel his pulse pounding. "Thank you," she says with enough feeling behind—a look so earnest—that he's about to ask what she means by it. What she _really_ means.

He's just about to when her phone rings.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks again for the support. Sorry not to have finished with the number of chapters I thought I would.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She mouths his name, and he realizes she thinks he's going. She thinks he's leaving just like that, and his heart takes another baffled tumble, because it hurts her. She'd left him alone for weeks and weeks without a word, and now the idea of him leaving hurts her and he doesn't understand anything between them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Set during the gap in Rise (4 x 01)

 

* * *

 

It's Jim. Of course it's Jim, though some part of him expected Esposito or Ryan or both. But of course Jim would call. He'd insist on that, at least, even if she did make him leave.

She's angry with him. Her dad. Or maybe just proud. Maybe just too stubborn not to play at angry, because even though the two of them haven't talked at all about the strange series of events that landed him on her doorstep, she must know Jim has something to do with it and she's angry about whatever promises he's broken. Or maybe this is how they are with each other. Short and clipped and stiff and formal.

He really doesn't know their dynamic. What it's like to be the fractured remains of a family, and he's wondering. Tipping his ear her way and only realizing in a kind of alarming, after-the-fact way that it's at least partly professional curiosity. It's appalling. Embarrassing that even now, he's apt to think about her life—her tragedies—that way.

He drops the spatula in the sink abruptly enough—loudly enough—that her head whips around. That she winces at the swift, ill-considered move. He makes for the outside world to give her some semblance of privacy. The screen door groans loudly enough that he almost doesn't hear her stumbling. Knocking a book from the table as she tries to hurry toward him, the phone still held to her ear.

She mouths his name, and he realizes she thinks he's going. She thinks he's leaving just like that, and his heart takes another baffled tumble, because it hurts her. She'd left him alone for weeks and weeks without a word, and now the idea of him leaving _hurts_ her and he doesn't understand anything between them.

For the moment, he shakes his head. Gives Jim's claim precedence and shoots her an apologetic smile as he mimes sitting on the porch. She nods, reluctant and tight lipped, like she's not sure of him. Or maybe she feels abandoned. Like he's selling her out. Leaving her to face the conversation alone when he's been conspiring with her dad. Either way, he doesn't see much of a choice.

He leaves the heavy inner door standing open. Just the screen between them, and he sets himself within easy view of the window. He can hear the rise and fall of her voice. The fierce rumble and contrite hesitation.

The conversation goes on longer than he would have thought. Long enough that the world intrudes. Certain inevitable things like the quick, sudden sinking of the sun and the way the sound of the woods changes entirely. The night-shift coming on, and he wonders again what comes next. Or wonders why he's _not_ wondering, when he really ought to be.

The screen door groans behind him. He pushes to his feet, turning to find her closer than he was expecting. But the porch is narrow and there's no real place for her to be other than close.

"How is . . . "

". . . My dad says . . ."

They fall silent as abruptly as they'd started talking over one another. He flicks a grim smile her way, and she returns it, but then they're stuck again.

"Getting dark," she says eventually. It's meant to sound casual, but it doesn't. It sounds choked and worried. She's white-knuckling the edge of the screen door. "The road out of here is . . ." she trails off.

"Beckett. I don't . . ." He looks over his shoulder at the car. Down at himself. He thinks about the box. The only thing he came here with. It doesn't matter, and it's the only thing that matters, both at once. "I don't want to go."

_Tonight_ , he thinks, and then, _Until we talk._ But _Ever_ is what he really means. He doesn't ever want to go, and he wonders if she knows that. If she remembers anything and whether or not she believes it if she _does_ remember.

He wonders so many things that he's sinking under it. Exhausted with it, but she opens the door wider. She leans into the groan of it and says softly, awkwardly, "So don't go."

And it's just that simple. For now—for this moment, at least—he steps back through the door, and it's just that simple.

* * *

 

She wants him to take the bed. One of the beds, because there are four doors inside, and two open on to minute boxes carved out of the open space of the rest of the cabin. Each is just big enough for a high, wrought-iron frame, identical, three-legged nightstands that can't be more than a foot across, and a straight-backed chair.

He wants the couch for no real reason. Faith in repetition or something. A fond memory already formed of a few peaceful hours, and he can't see why it matters to her. Can't see why she's suddenly adamant there be a door between them, but she is. She's quick tempered and insistent, and he's no better. He's tired. The sun is hardly down, but he hasn't exactly been keeping regular hours, and the air is heavier here. Everything is heavier, and he just wants to collapse on to the thick, ugly fabric.

"What's the _difference,_ Beckett?" He turns in place, wishing he had something other than the clothes on his back to stake a claim. "Why do you care?"

"Because it's _bad_ at night." She yells. She's _yelling_ full on, and it makes them both blink. The suddenness, but the force of it, too. The fact that she's just filled her lungs and yelled. The fact that she _can_ pulls an odd smile from each of them, even as they stand there staring.

"Dreams?" he asks quietly when the silence grows too thick to just leave it like that.

She shakes her head. "I don't sleep much. I walk . . . sometimes it's better if I'm just up."

The pieces don't fit. He thinks about her sinking heavily into the chair. About how quickly pain and then the relief of medication had pulled her under. How long and hard she'd slept.

"You don't take it at night." It's horrifying, even as he says it. Maddening, because why? _Why?_ "The medication."

"I don't," she says flatly, and he knows the tone too well. Knows the blank, solid wall he won't get through. Won't make a dent in, however long he bangs his head against it. "I'm not going to, and it's bad at night. So, please, Castle. Take the damned bed."

* * *

 

He does in the end. He takes one of the beds without further argument, because he's tired, body and soul. Because she's a grown woman. It's her life and her business if she wants to suffer in the name of whatever. Because he's _so_ angry at what she's doing to herself that if he opens his mouth now, he won't close it again until there's damage done. More damage done, and he's not sure she doesn't want that. An easy, terrible end. He's not sure some destructive part of _him_ doesn't want it. Wouldn't be relieved to have some kind of resolution at least.

So he closes the solid door with a pointed bump and strips down to his boxers, not even bothering with the bathroom. Not bothering with soap or water or any clumsy semblance of brushing his teeth with his fingers. He jerks back the covers and climbs in. Literally climbs, because the old-fashioned frame is high, and the mattress has too much give for it to be easy.

He softens toward her without wanting to, wondering if she's tried to climb in to one bed or the other. If she'd hung her head and let Jim help her every night he was here. If the memory of that helplessness is one more reason it's bad at night. He softens, strangled with it all. Questions and suspicions and things he'd try to understand if she'd just _tell_ him. If she'd just let him in.

He doesn't remember falling asleep. Doesn't even remember insisting that he couldn't possibly _be_ falling asleep this time. There's just absence. Darkness and then his eyes flying open. His hands hitting out blindly in the dark. His mouth open and his throat raw.

"Castle!"

He feels fingernails digging into the skin of his arm. His shoulder. Hears her, somehow, though she can barely get out his name in a whisper.

"Kate." He reaches for her, but she flinches back. He sees the silhouette of her by the dim light of the high-up window. Her hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks. Beads of moisture glistening on her skin. She's drenched in sweat. He reaches out again, careful this time, and feels the shirt sticking to her back. "What happened?"

"Nightmare," she says through her teeth. "You were . . . screaming." She pants. Tries to lean against the bed, but her spine goes stiff with the awful angle.

He's out of the bed like a shot, leaning her body against his. Wrapping his arms around her with infinite care. "You're hurting."

She doesn't say anything. Can't, probably, but he feels a slight awkward movement against his arm. A nod.

"Can you sit? Or lie down if I . . ." He lifts her by the waist, not waiting for permission in the terror of the moment. He sets her on the bed and lets his hands follow her own weak movements. He lifts her knees and spreads his palm between her shoulder blades to hold her there, tipped slightly on to her side until he can prop her with a pillow. "Is that ok? Is that ok, Kate?"

He's talking too much. Still jittery with adrenaline and afraid to to let her say no, but she nods again. Squeezes his hand hard and the crunch of knuckles spurs him on. "Let me get you something for it. Please." He chafes his thumb over her palm. Endless circles.

"I forget to breathe sometimes." The words come, faint and small. "I just . . . forget to breathe."

She's afraid. It's obvious, and he wishes it hadn't taken this for him to see it. An awful, middle-of-the-night admission. It hits him squarely in the gut as he remembers watching over her. Willing the next breath to come and the next and the next.

He remembers the watch. Why she wears it, and her father. He wonders how many nights she kept close to him, doing exactly the same thing. Worrying the next breath wouldn't come. Of course she's afraid, but she's in pain, too, and it's not the same. It's not at all the same.

"I won't let you forget." He leans over her. Strokes the sweat-soaked hair back from her cheek. "I'll be right here, every second, and I won't let you forget to breathe, ok?"

She nods. After an eternity, she nods.

* * *

 

It's a production in the dark. Sitting her up. Letting her dig her fingers in and find the best compromise between pain and whatever energy she has left. He holds the glass for her, anything else is impossible, and she coughs anyway. Wracking and almost silent, leaving him panicked until she gasps, taking in a huge, painful lungful of air. He helps her lie down again. Arranges her limbs like doll's, because she's so thoroughly exhausted now.

But then he's at loose ends. He sets the glass and the bottle of medication on the tiny night table. Thinks about taking them both back to the bathroom to kill some time, because he doesn't know what to do with himself. He's baffled by the mechanics of keeping his promise in a space so small. He looks at the straight-backed chair. At the floor.

"Just get in, Castle." She sounds weary. Still winded from the struggle of getting one tiny pill down, and he sees in the dim light that she's holding the covers up the best she can, her fist barely an inch over the surface of the bed. "You said . . ."

She trails off, but it still sounds defiant. Defensive, and he's so tired of fighting. Her, himself, and everything. He's tired of everything that isn't being near her. With her. So he gets in.

"I said . . ." he concedes as he takes the covers from her hand and eases his weight on to the mattress as carefully as he can.

She leans into him. Steadies herself with a hand at his hip. Leaves it there even when they're settled. He reaches out his own hand. Rests it as lightly as he can where her spine meets the last of her ribs.

"is this . . .?" He doesn't finish the question. It's absurd to ask permission when they're lying here, nose to nose, her breath, weak as it is, enough to stir the hair on his forehead. But it satisfies something in him when she nods. It settles bone and sinew. It settles his stomach and the nervous energy still crackling over his skin from the nightmare, even though he doesn't remember it.

They lie quietly together, and he feels the pain leave her. He feels her spine soften and her ribs rise and fall more naturally under his palm. Feels her breaths grow long and deep enough that he's sure she's drifting off. He's glad of it, but then her voice comes quietly in the dark, and somehow it doesn't startle him. Somehow it seems like it's time. A hundred miles from home in a dark little room, it seems like time they talked.

* * *

 

"Is it . . . are they always that bad?" Her voice is unsteady. Whether it's time or not, she doesn't know how to start this conversation any more than he does. "The nightmares."

"It's always the same, pretty much," he says, hoping she'll accept it. Hoping she won't make him say any more, but then he goes on. Volunteers a little more and he's not sure why, except maybe he has to. They both have to. "Not getting to you in time. Not being able to . . . save . . ."

She shakes her head. Too vigorously, and it hurts her, even with the medication. He tries to soothe her. To say it's ok, but even in the dark, he can feel the weight of her glare. It's not ok, so he stays quiet. He waits.

"I wrote it before," she says when she has her breath back. "On the plane back to New York. You slept the whole way," she adds, and he hears something like smile in her voice as she lets her head rest a little heavier against his shoulder. He wonders if it's a fond memory for her. If she'd found rest in him and he'd missed it.

But even with that—even with the way he wonders—it's strange the way he's able to follow. The way he knows she means the note. The watch. LA. It's strange that he doesn't for a second think it's sleep or medication loosening her tongue. He doesn't for a second think of any of the words she gives him as anything but an answer. The best of her knowledge.

"LA. Why then?" He follows, but it doesn't mean he understands.

"I loved him." She says it quickly. Almost like she hopes he won't hear. Or she won't, maybe. But she takes herself to task the next second. Calls herself to account. "Loved Royce. But it was . . ." She falls silent, and no wonder. There's a void between them in the dark. An absence of words pulling at them both. "He'd have let me go over the edge after it. My mom's case. And I'd have let him . . . ." She stops. Starts again. "I guess I did let him . . ."

"Kate . . ." He wants to tell her no. To lift the burden from her, but he doesn't know its size or shape. He doesn't know the nature of it, and she's going on anyway. Trying to explain. Not looking for absolution, even if he knew how to give it.

"He just cut me loose one day. Before I made detective even. Told me he was putting in his papers and that was that."

_Putting in his papers_. The phrase strikes him. The same matter-of-fact phrase Esposito used when he asked, but it's not an echo. It's _not_ matter of fact from her. It's pained. Embittered and something else.

"That must have . . ." His fingers fan out. They trace her spine. Soothing or trying to. "Must have hurt."

She nods. Shakes her head _no,_ almost in in the same movement. "I think he just knew before I did that we were . . . we fed the worst things in each other. It took me a long time to see that.

"Therapy," he breathes as the piece slots into place. "That's when you went into therapy."

He goes quiet, then. Silent and sick, because it's the same story. Royce. Him. It's the same exact story, and the watch makes less sense to him than ever.

"It isn't the same, Castle. It isn't." He doesn't know if he's said it out loud. If she just knows that well how his mind works, or if that's what she told herself that first summer. If maybe that's how she saw it all the way until LA. He doesn't know anything, only that they've pulled each other closer, their bodies tangled up in earnest now. Awkward, maybe. Necessarily. But her words spill right across his cheek and he doesn't know anything beyond this. "The way I closed off. The way I hid. I needed therapy long before Royce. I need it now—I know that. But before you . . . that wasn't living."

"And this is?" His thumb sweeps out. A wide arc that just barely hitches up the hem of her shirt to brush the scar at her side. "This is, Kate? I did this. I . . ."

He thinks of Josh suddenly. Belatedly, given the circumstances. Given that her hands are on his skin and he's following the curve of her cheek with his lips. Given that she's turning her chin up to meet them with her own and time goes missing in the fascination of that—of her kissing him and him kissing her—for a good long while.

"Castle." She's breathless when she pulls away. Not from pain. Not from medication. From him. From _them,_ and he wants badly to steal the air from her lungs all over again. He settles instead for holding her. Pressing delicate fingers into the knots of her spine and reveling in the incomparable feeling of it. Having her close and easing a little of her pain. "Castle, I know what this looks like. What _I_ look right now." She pulls away from him as if he can see anything in the dark. As if she doesn't look the same to him in any light. "But you _did_ save my life, without me even realizing it. And my dad's watch . . . I'm always going to want you to have it."

"Ok," he says, though it's not. It's nothing he can grasp. Nothing he can accept without thinking of all the blame that's his and hers and theirs. How _badly_ wrong they've gone so often. But he doesn't have to get it. Not all at once. Not when he feels her drifting off in his arms. Feels himself drifting with her.

"Not for a long, long time, though."

He struggles long enough for that. Struggles against sleep, and so does she.

"A long, long time."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Long chapter. I considered splitting it into two, and edited it back as much as possible, but I think it'll just have to be this long. I want to do some work on the epilogue (which is quite short). I'll try to have that up tonight. Thank you all again for reading and supporting.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He fiddles with the parts of the percolator. Reaches back into childhood and lets his fingers remember how this goes. How many scoops in a pot for two. He counts out the water, twice as long as she did yesterday, and waits for the dark liquid to climb high into the crystal knob, smiling to himself when he hears her step behind him at just that moment."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And the brief epilogue. Set in the time gap in Rise 4 x 01.

 

* * *

He wakes before her. Lies there a long while, loving the pins and needles in the arm slipped under the pillow to raise her head a little. Loving that her face is mashed completely against his chest and the way the heat of her body makes his skin sticky with sweat.

But needs to move eventually. Needs the bathroom and . . . _God_ . . . mouthwash or something. He needs coffee and a plan. Clean underwear and clothes and a phone charger, if he's going to stay with her. And he _is_ going to stay with her.

So he eases himself out from under. Bunches up the blanket to stand in for parts of his own body as he works them free. He tucks pillows around her carefully. Carefully, so of course she shifts extravagantly, undoing all his work the second his feet hit the floor. She winces in her sleep, but her knees tuck up and her fists are propped under hips and she settles.

He feels more at home in the kitchen today. More at home in his own skin. He fiddles with the parts of the percolator. Reaches back into childhood and lets his fingers remember how this goes. How many scoops in a pot for two. He counts out the water, twice as long as she did yesterday, and waits for the dark liquid to climb high into the crystal knob, smiling to himself when he hears her step behind him at just that moment.

He turns to tell her it'll be just a second. To hold his hand out and help her up on the stool to wait. But she's standing far across the room, clinging to the wall.

"Kate?" He takes a step toward her and another.

"Home," she says. "Castle, I want to go home."

"Home?" It's like a foreign word in his mouth. A wonderful foreign word, and she nods. "Thank God. Oh, thank God, Beckett." He's wrapped around her without remembering how he closed the distance between. Without remembering the steps in between. He's kissing her in daylight, and she doesn't seem to mind. The spell doesn't seem to have been broken, though she pulls back all too soon. "What?"

"Well . . ." She's looking up at him, shyly. Almost that coy version of demanding that's hers and hers alone, but she's out of practice. "I kind of need a ride."

* * *

It doesn't take much time.

He makes them breakfast. Annoys her by "supervising" as she eats. She bats him, away and declines his gracious offer to hand feed her, and it's not quite them. It couldn't possibly be, not so soon, but it's another few steps closer.

And after that, there's really nothing to do. She has a few things to roll neatly into a duffle bag while he empties the fridge. It's busy work, really. A task he sets himself so that he'll leave her alone for any number of good reasons, but there's not much to do there, either. They've more or less managed to eat her out of house and home in just two meals, and he wants to crow about it.

She doesn't want any of the books—not even one for the car—and he doesn't blame her, the way they must have stared her down for weeks. He hopes she'll sleep anyway. He has a hopeful little fantasy that she'll rest on the way and open her eyes to the city at just the right time of day. Just when she feels best, and she won't have any regrets.

He steps out on to the porch as she's taking a last look around the cabin. He figures she might want a moment to make any silent goodbyes or whatever, but follows right away. She's practically on his heels, pulling the door shut behind her. She's clumsy as feels around for the key. She locks up and snaps the magnetic box back to the metal underside.

She turns and he sees what's behind the awkward movement. The box she's holding tight in one hand. He'd forgotten. In the space of one day—one night with her in his arms—he'd actually forgotten.

She's gotten rid of the packaging. Of the awful, official, mistaken letter, and it's just the hinged case she holds  out to him. He takes the cue. He lifts the lid and extracts the watch, feeling the weight of it in his palm. Welcoming it for just a moment before he takes her left hand and fastens the band around her wrist. A full notch tighter than before, he notices from the bend in the leather. A full notch, because there's a long way to go. A long way.

"Better," he says, holding on to her hand. Holding the glass face up so it catches the sun.

"Better," she agrees quietly, but she pushes the hinged box toward him. She shakes free of his hold to wrap his hands around it. "Hold on to this for me?"

It's just a simple jeweler's box now. Empty but for the note he knows must still be in there, tucked underneath or behind. It's nothing he understands, but he doesn't have to. Not at all once, because they have time.

He smiles at her. Kisses her in daylight. In full view of the whole, wide world. "Tight as I can."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you for your patience and for the support for this story from those who read and those of you who commented to offered feedback and support. That's it for me for the foreseeable future, but I am grateful to you all for getting me through the end of this story.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: It's contrived. The situation is so contrived that I hate it, but Brain has no such scruples. Thanks for reading.


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